Shopping at midnight

At midnight last night I had to do some shopping: my collimator had broken (who knows why or how) and in exasperation I rushed to order a replacement, which I hope will be more robust than this make. The collimator sort-of works when bandaged with masking tape; but hardly ideal.

Jupiter rose and the Moon had moved far enough round not to be right in my eyes as I looked at it. It is surprising how much detail you can tease out over a period, although on a quick glance there seems to be nothing except the two major belts. It’s easier to see the dark features than pale ones – for example, looking at images taken by astrophotographers there is a line of turbulence in the Equatorial Zone, but there’s not enough contrast to allow me to pick that out. The GRS is very pale indeed.

This is the finished drawing in the log:

This is what I tidied up and transcribed from my soggy outdoor notebook – drawing in gloves by red torch (even with added moonlight) not very easy.